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This blog helps you keep up with our progress as a non-profit startup. If you support overcome.tv through a recurring monthly donation, we'll send you a monthly update linking to the posts for that month so you can see the role that your support plays.

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It's Time to Crowdfund overcome.tv

Fahed B.

Aug 27, 2016

overcome.tv took flight through the generous donations of some angel investors. But now that it's airborne, we need to ensure that we cover our costs.

We did raise $14,000 through LaunchGood in Ramadan. But that money is reserved for the production of about 100 videos. It's the cost of design, development and marketing.

The romantic idea of a few very wealthy people covering the costs sounds great. But, in reality, it's far from ideal. It's a bit like having a business that depends on a few key customers. If those customers leave you, you're in deep trouble... And if those donors can no longer donate, for whatever reason, we'll be in deep trouble.

The solution is getting many people to support us with much smaller amounts of money. In modern terminology, it's called "crowdfunding".

The added benefit of this is that lots of Muslims get the chance to invest in their akhira. After all, funding da'wa is a perpetual charity that is difficult to beat.

Our research on the various platforms has led us to conclude that patreon.com is right for us. Other content providers have used it to raise over $50m, so it's safe. And their user experience is pretty good too.

We also like that they encourage us to use the word "patron". Unlike "donor", which feels like a 1-time thing, patron has a more "ongoing" feel.

The only annoyance is that you have to create a Patreon account to become a patron. This will definitely impact our patronage conversion rates, but we'll try to minimise it.

UPDATE Sep 2, 2016

A UK-based patron has told us that Patreon is charging him 20% VAT over and above his patronage amount. It seems that Patreon applies VAT to Europe-based patrons which, of course, is crazy. As such, we won't be able to stay with Patreon for much longer. We'll also have to delay any patronage outreach in the UK until we resolve this.

About

This blog helps you keep up with our progress as a non-profit startup. If you support overcome.tv through a recurring monthly donation, we'll send you a monthly update linking to the posts for that month so you can see the role that your support plays.

Help Us

The best way of helping us is by making a small monthly donation. This will give you a share in the ever-increasing reward of helping people embrace Islam and it will save us from being distracted by fundraising. Though, if you can't donate, you can always volunteer as well.